arded her
with scorn.

"That _would_ be a sensible thing to do, now, wouldn't it. He writes a
note that he is hoping with all his heart that his mother will see.
Then he calmly locks the door and walks off with the key! What for?"

"If he didn't do it, who did?" Cynthia defended herself. "Not the
servants. They went before he did, probably. There's only one person
left--his mother!"

"You've struck it at last. What a good guesser you are!" said Joyce,
witheringly. Then she relented. "Yes, she must have done it, Cynthia.
She locked the door, and took the key away, or did something with
it,--though what on earth _for_, I can't imagine!"

"But what makes you think she did it _before_ she read the note?"
demanded Cynthia.

"There are just two reasons, Cynthia. She couldn't have been _human_ if
she'd read that heart-rending letter and not gone to work at once and
made every effort to reach her son! But there's one other thing that
makes me _sure_. Do you see anything _different_ about this room?"
Cynthia gazed about her critically. Then she replied:

"Why, no. I can't seem to see anything so _different_. Perhaps I don't
know what you mean."

"Then I'll tell you. Look at the windows! Are they like the ones in the
rest of the house?"

"Oh, no!" cried Cynthia. "Now I see! The curtains are not drawn, or the
shutters closed. It's just dark because it's boarded up outside."

"That's precisely it!" announced Joyce. "You see, she must have gone
around closing all the other inside shutters tight. But she never
touched them in this room. Therefore she probably never came in here.
The desk is right by the window. She couldn't have helped seeing the
letter if she had come in. No, for some reason we can't guess, she
locked the door,--and never knew!"

"And she never, never will know," whispered Cynthia. "That's the saddest
part of it!"

CHAPTER XII

A SLIGHT DISAGREEMENT

The Friday afternoon meeting of the Sigma Sigma literary society broke
up with the usual confused mingling of chatter and laughter. There had
been a lively debate, and Joyce and Cynthia, as two of the opponents,
had just finished roundly and wordily belaboring each other. They
entwined arms now, amiably enough, and strolled away to collect their
books and leave for home. Out on the street, Cynthia suddenly began:

"Do you know, we've never had that illumination in the Boarded-up House
that we planned last fall, when we commenced cleaning up th